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Sunday, April 24, 2016

TA7642 / ZN414 / MK484

All 3 references in the title are small, 3 pin, AM receivers in a chip with minimal external components.

I remember seeing then in schematics at electronics magazines many years ago, somehow expensive (the Ferranti ZN414) at that time, so, never got one. Until now, the equivalent TA7642:

... previous image is the testing board, run with the following schematics and it worked:

..my small changes in red. During the night with this it was possible to get some stations and also a beacon, I guest the cap/coil tuning range was going inside the LW band. The coil, don't remember where I got it, probably from some scavenged radio.

Tested also with variable capacitor to ground:

..was about to try with the varicap in place when I "fried" the TA7642 by touching the input with the soldering iron while powered on, bad luck and crappy iron, pretty sure the varicap version will work too!

Anyhow it's a funning litle device, good enough for a very simple AM receiver.